- The Harvard Library has removed a human skin binding from a book in its collection.
- The book has been in the Harvard library since 1934.
- The book is said to be bound with the skin of a deceased psychiatric patient.
The Harvard Library said the human skin binding of one of its books had finally been removed after nearly a century.
The copy of the French book “Des destines de l’âme” was bound with skin taken from the corpse of a patient in a psychiatric hospital, according to a question-and-answer session.
The book will remain in the library’s possession, but the “ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history” led Harvard to remove the skin, the university’s Houghton Library said on its website.
The statement said the library is in contact with university and French authorities to determine a “respectful final disposition” of the remains.
According to Harvard, the book’s original owner, Dr. Ludovic Bouland, acquired the skin while he was a medical student and bound the book himself. In a note slipped into the book, Bouland wrote that “a book on the human soul deserved to have a human cover.”
The book was placed in the Houghton Library in 1934 and, according to librarian Anne-Marie Eze, students working at the library may have used the book for hazing rituals.
The library confirmed that the book was bound by human skin in 2014.
“The central problem in the creation of this volume was a doctor who failed to see a whole person before him and who carried out the heinous act of removing a piece of skin from a deceased patient, almost certainly without his consent, and “use book binding in a way that has been handled by many for over a century,” Harvard librarian Tom Hyry said during the question-and-answer session.
Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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